Time To Keep It Simple serves as a record of my life as a traveler, writer, genealogist, photographer, target sports enthusiast, Rotarian, Mason, Jew, PR professional, and many other (mostly positive) things. In addition to this daily blog I am also the man behind the curtain (not named Oz) at gettingyourphil.blogspot.com and I previously blogged at fromgoytooleh.blogspot.com.

Sunday, May 31, 2015

Sunday Search: New/Old Records On Ancestry

Birth Certificate of my great grandfather Harry Gilmore Teaford

While
I would like to be on the site more often, I am only occasionally able to check
Ancestry.com for updates to the various databases that are available online.
Recently, I have had less time than usual to browse the site but was able to do
so today. There are always new data sources and updates made but, especially lately,
few have caught my attention like the ones I found today.

This
past week, birth, marriage, and death records from Virginia were posted. While
the date range is limited and they are by no means comprehensive collections, I
was still able to find some new records as well as digital copies of records
that I haven’t had the chance to upload. While the latter may not be new
information, given the current disarray of my office, this was a welcomed
discovery.

Death certificate of my great great grandfather Roy Harrison Teaford.

Death Certificate of my great great grandmother Sallie Clapsaddle.

With
these databases now available, I was able to explore a little more and find a
few of the missing documents that I had been wanting to find including my great
grandfathers birth certificate (albeit a registration from 1958), my great
great grandfathers death certificate (I had found this information listed but
was unable until now to find the actual record), the death certificate for my
three times great grandfather, and the elusive Love and Redcross death
certificates which I got copies of last summer but are sitting in a box next to
my desk. It is interesting to go through these documents and confirm the
parents (especially the mother’s surname)… I really didn’t expect to see
Nicholas’ mother listed as a Terry. However, what was particularly striking was
the fact that Laura and Nicholas Love’s death certificates were only a number
apart from one another with them passing away only days apart from influenza
(with some other contributing factors). It was just sad to see Nicholas listed
as a widower when you know that Laura died only a few days prior.

Death certificate from March 9, 1939 of my great great grandmother Laura Redcross.

Death certificate from March 16, 1939 of my great great grandfather Nicholas Love.

Just
like when the Pennsylvania records became available, I keep searching my family
tree to find those that fit into the time frame. There are a few that I have
been unable to find as the rural records are a little slower when it comes to
digitization and there are also the ancestors who died just before the time frame of data available. Those are usually the ones that the parents’ names
need to be confirmed. Also an interesting means of confirmation with these
documents is that it tells you not only where they have been buried but also
who the informant was at the time of death or who witnessed the birth as in the
case of my great grandfather.

Death certificate of my 3x great grandfather George W. Clapsaddle.

Such
is the ebb and flow of ancestry when the new sources are added followed by an
extended wait and then more databases are added that are pertinent to your
family research. In between is the time for digging, organizing, and finding
all the more obscure sources and documents which are usually still exclusively
in the physical (not digital) world. It is this back and forth multi-source process that continue to provide the results. Of course, Ancestry DNA should
provide for some interesting insights as well but that is for a future post
(when I get the results).